Day: December 25, 2018

Gov.-Elect Lee to Hold Inauguration Jan. 19 at Legislative Plaza

Jason M. Reynolds

Governor-elect Bill Lee has announced his inauguration schedule. “We have announced the details for the events leading up to the inauguration on January 19th,” Lee’s team said on Facebook. The list of events and other information is available here on a website titled “Believe in Tennessee.” The celebration starts at 8 p.m. CST Friday, Jan. 18 with “Boots on Broadway: Music & More” at Acme Feed & Seed. Tickets are required for some events and may be purchased from a page here that lists the events. Some events do not require tickets but organizers suggest an RSVP for them. “Maria and I are honored to serve Tennessee and we are excited to gather with folks from across the state for the inaugural,” Lee said in a statement. “We’ve visited all 95 counties twice, and we know that Tennesseans care deeply about our state. We live in a remarkable state, with remarkable people, and I believe that as good a place as Tennessee is, we can be even better, and we can lead the nation.” The Inaugural Ceremony will be at 11 a.m. CST Saturday, Jan. 19 at Legislative Plaza. No tickets are required. Tennessee Supreme Court Chief Justice Jeffrey S.…

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Commentary: The President’s Enemies and Their Confected Drama

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Drain the Swamp, Donald Trump

by Conrad Black   It is astonishing to see the ferocity, and breathless, stertorous rage of the Trump-hating media over Michael Cohen’s flip. Because the whole issue is such nonsense, it is also reassuring to see Trump’s enemies place their heads on the block with such determination, beseeching by their outrageous falsehoods the executioner’s stroke to expose their lies and hate. There they are since there is no case against the president sufficiently serious to threaten his completion of his term. I am one of the last people who would claim any standing to opine on the motives and tactics for the Trump-haters to push in all their chips on this charge about payments to an amiable porn star and a Playboy bunny emerita. The president’s most strident enemies in the media have cranked themselves up to a fever of simulated moral superiority many times: it is a mnemonic feat to recall their innumerable charges to the barricades these last two years. Almost no one now remembers Michael Wolff’s inane book, or even Bob Woodward’s pastiche of fabrications and malicious gossip. But this is a home run. Apart from its extreme vehemence, what is most striking about this latest oceanic…

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The Hero of ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ Isn’t George Bailey

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by Eric Teachout   I think I’m not the only person that cries every time I watch “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The movie pulls our heart strings because we can all relate to George Bailey: man has dreams to see the world and do big things, but is instead given a meager life of service. Many reduce the film’s central message to a dichotomy of  selfishness vs. selflessness, for good or ill. However, it’s not the greedy capitalists or the needs of others that George is struggling against, but something much deeper. Ultimately, George is wrestling with his own destiny, and often in the midst of life’s frustrations, so are we. I try to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” every Christmas, and after watching it this year with a friend, we noticed something new. It wasn’t the dramatic change in the protagonist, but the steadiness of his wife: the ever faithful Mary Hatch Bailey. Now we’ve all been taught—by middle school English teachers and film critics alike—that morally perfect characters are flat and boring. If this is true, then Mary Bailey should hold no sway over our hearts. Throughout the plot, Mary is seemingly flawless; about the only crime she…

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Commentary: Merry Christmas – We’re All Gonna Die (Again)!

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by Thaddeaus G. McCotter   One of the less salubrious effects of the anti-social network is how everything and anything is deemed the end of the world and, logically, the end of humanity. True, to the Regressives, the end of humanity does not mean the end of the world but, rather, a reprieve from us for Goddess Gaia. But why quibble and ruin the spirit of the season? Speaking of ruining the spirit of the season, to paraphrase President Ronald Reagan: “Well, here we are again.” Here at home, the Dow is down and the Donald’s ire is up. The government is shut down over the issue of funding for the southern border wall. General Michael Flynn was in court for sentencing and is still not sentenced. Michael Cohen is going to jail and the president has discussed the case with his acting attorney general, causing within the political class an outpouring of narcissistic panic about the fate of our free republic not seen since lunch. Naturally, the hashtag “#TrumpResign” is trending number one, because the onanistic resistance has mystically divined that this is the silver bullet that will make the bane of their existence pick up his money bags…

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ACLU Defends Chelsea Manning But Silent About FBI Raid Against Reported Clinton Whistleblower

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by Richard Pollock   The American Civil Liberties Union and other left-wing civil liberties groups defend Chelsea Manning and other whistleblowers, but have remained silent about an FBI raid on a reportedly protected whistleblower. The Daily Caller News Foundation sought comment from a variety of organizations and advocates that defend whistleblowers following the raid. While conservatives and moderates responded, most of the liberal groups, including the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights, did not. Sixteen FBI agents raided Cain’s home for six hours on Nov. 19, despite that Cain, a former employee of an FBI contractor, was a protected whistleblower under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act, according to his attorney, Michael Socarras. Cain possessed documents that showed federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Uranium One, according to Socarras. The three liberal organizations have voiced support for whistleblowers, including Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst who was convicted by court martial under the Espionage Act in 2013 after giving 750,000 classified and unclassified government documents to WikiLeaks. Conversely, Cain provided his documents to the Justice Department Inspector General, and they have not…

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Schiff Will Subpoena Mueller Report if White House Tries to Block its Release

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by Chuck Ross   California Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday that he is prepared to subpoena a report from the special counsel’s Russia investigation should the White House try to block its release. “At the end of the day, this is just — this case is just too important to keep from the American people what it’s really about,” Schiff said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” CNN host Jake Tapper had asked Schiff, a Democrat, whether he would use his subpoena power when he takes over next month as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to obtain the report, should the Trump administration attempt to block its release. https://youtu.be/_BY7odWtwrw?t=1591 “I’m prepared to make sure we do everything possible so that the public has the advantage of as much of the information as it can,” Schiff said. “That sounds like a yes,” said Tapper. “Well, that pretty much is a yes, from my point of view,” Schiff replied, adding that “we ought to make sure this report is public.” Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly planning to send his report to the Justice Department as early as mid-February, NBC News reported Friday. The Justice Department, which is…

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Commentary: Former Atheist Explains How Rationality, Not Emotion, Encourages Religious Belief

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by Annie Holmquist   I recently ran across an interview with author Stephen Asma in The Irish Times. Although an atheist, Asma is a rather unique atheist because he believes religion is necessary, a fact evidenced in his recent book Why We Need Religion. According to Asma, a philosophy professor, religion does not make sense rationally, but it makes a lot of sense emotionally: “Of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, he says: ‘I agree with them that religion fails miserably at the bar of rational validity, but we’re at the wrong bar.; Religion is not necessarily meant to be true, he argues, but it’s meant to be useful. ‘Religion helps people, rightly or wrongly, manage their emotional lives’ and especially cope with pain. Asma goes on to say, “Rationality cannot do the heavy lifting that is required in the face of devastating loss. What is needed is positive emotion and pain-reduction – in a word, religion.” At first blush, such an admission seems like a backhanded compliment – a recognition that religion is a useful and needful element. On second thought, Asma’s comment seems simply to echo Karl Marx’s famous statement that religion is the opium of the people. But one of modern…

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World’s Most Popular Dinosaur Transforms at Chicago’s Field Museum

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by Kane Farabaugh   You don’t often get a second chance to make a first impression, unless, of course, you’re one of the world’s most popular dinosaurs. “It’s a different profile, a much more impressive profile in many ways, a pretty scary large animal, as opposed to a lighter, swifter animal,” says the Field Museum’s Director of Exhibitions, Jaap Hoogstraten, who has courted the leading lady of the dinosaurs since she arrived in Chicago nearly twenty years ago. “Since we put her up in 2000, we’ve made discoveries about the pose. We’ve added the gastralia, which are the belly ribs which changes the outline of Sue quite a bit. Sue is much bulkier.” The belly ribs are not a new discovery… they’ve existed since the fossil was recovered from obscurity in the rock formations of South Dakota in the early 1990s. That was the beginning of a long legal and physical journey for the world’s largest Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. Known as Sue, named for paleontologist Sue Hendrickson who discovered it, the well-preserved specimen arrived as the star attraction in Stanley Hall at the Field Museum in 2000. But scientists only recently learned how the belly ribs fit onto the overall…

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New Documentary Shows Viewers the Power of Tech Giants

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by Ryan McMaken   The Creepy Line, a new documentary by director M.A. Taylor, is now streaming at Amazon Prime. It provides an interesting and revealing look at how Google and Facebook influence their users’ view of the world, and how the users we often presume to be the customers of these companies aren’t really the customers. The users are, in fact, the product being sold to third parties. The Creepy Line takes its title from a description of Google once uttered by Google executive Eric Schmidt who said Google’s mission was to “get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” In truth, though, by pioneering the “surveillance business model,” Google has arguably been stepping over “the creepy line” for years. Not that this has been much of a problem for the company. Few users seem motivated to stop using Google products. It is perhaps in its basic explanations of how this surveillance model works that The Creepy Line is most interesting: the filmmakers explain in simple terms how a small number of companies have come to compile extensive data profiles of many hundreds of millions of human beings, and how that user data is the real…

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Trump Takes Steps to Prevent Catastrophic Forest Fires, Including More Logging

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by Michael Bastasch   President Donald Trump moved forward with policies aimed at preventing catastrophic wildfires while the media breathlessly covered the government funding battle. Trump issued an executive order Friday to allow for active management of forest and rangelands, including thinning and removing debris from millions of acres of federal lands. The order also calls on federal officials to streamline regulations and permitting processes to allow the harvest of at least 3.8 billion board feet from U.S. Forest Service lands and 600 million board feet from Bureau of Land Management lands. That represents a massive increase in timber sales from federal lands. For example, loggers harvested 2.9 billion board feet from Forest Service lands in 2017, according to federal figures. But even Trump’s increased allowance for loggers is still about one-quarter of what was harvested in 1973. Trump also asked federal officials to do more to maintain roads into hard-to-reach areas where fires can spread. Western Republicans welcomed Trump’s order. GOP lawmakers said that a change in policies was sorely needed after the devastating 2018 wildfire season, which saw more than 8.5 million acres burned. “While litigation activists thwarted forest management reforms, the Senate also failed to pass legislation…

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Former Northeast Knox Utility District Employee Indicted for Theft

Chris Butler

A former customer service representative with the Northeast Knox Utility District misappropriated more than $8,000 by using two separate schemes, according to an audit Tennessee Comptrollers released this week. A Knox County grand jury indicted that woman, Sonya Sherrow, earlier this year on one count of theft over $2,500. The grand jury also indicted her on two counts of forgery, one count of money laundering, and one count of official misconduct, according to a press release. “The investigation began after the Comptroller’s Office was notified that district officials had discovered unusual adjustments to customer accounts. Investigators found that Sherrow misappropriated district collections totaling at least $8,507 by using two separate schemes,” Comptrollers wrote in their audit. “Most of the misappropriation came from fictitious adjustments totaling $6,346 that Sherrow made to district customers’ accounts. In many cases, a customer would pay his or her utility bill in full, and Sherrow would keep the money for herself. She would then adjust the customer’s account records to indicate a zero balance.” District officials, Comptrollers went on to say, did not have a written policy for account adjustments, and the adjustment review process was inadequate. “Additionally, Sherrow employed a lapping scheme to conceal her…

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Outgoing Ohio Governor John Kasich Asks Tesla CEO Elon Musk to Save Lordstown Auto Plant by Tweet

Andrew Shirley

Thursday, December 20th, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, gave his first public response to Governor John Kasich’s multiple attempts to reach him in the hope of saving the Lordstown Assembly complex in Warren, Ohio. On November 26th, General Motors announced that the 6.2 million square foot auto manufacturing facility, along with four additional plants nationwide, will be closing in 2019. The plant currently employs over 1,500 Ohioans who would all be laid off, should the factory cease operations. Following the decision, a coalition of union leaders, factory workers, and community members, known as Drive it Home, formed almost immediately to challenge the move. In 1998, when GM announced plans the close the plant, a similar coalition called Bring it Home successfully arranged for GM to keep the plant open, albeit at a more modest production level. While many are hopeful that GM can be convinced once again, in a November 29th statement (copied below) Governor Kasich announced that he, the GM Team, and JobsOhio would “explore alternatives” for the plant’s future, implying that GM  was not likely to reopen the plant and if the plant had a future, it would be with another company. In a December 7th teaser for a full segment…

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Eric Swalwell Says Left-Wing Resistance was the ‘Most Significant’ Moment in 2018

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by Molly Prince   Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell of California revealed that the most significant moment of 2018 was the anti-President Donald Trump movement. “It’s going to be the footsteps that went from the town squares,” Swalwell replied to Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball when asked in December what was the “most significant moment” of the past year. “They went to the town halls for stopping the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and standing up for other issues as it related to stopping the tax bill,” Swalwell continued. “Then those footsteps went to the ballot box and sent 40 members of Congress to flip the House — 27 of them in their 40s or under.” He also gave recognition to the so-called resistance protests such as the student-led anti-gun March for Our Lives and the Women’s March, which began in 2017 but continued through 2018. The Women’s March has notably faced massive backlash for many of the organizers’ anti-Semitic views. “I think it’s going from the town square to the town hall to the ballot box and bringing change to Washington, D.C.,” Swalwell said summing up his answer. “That was the most significant moment of 2018.” The California congressman is a…

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Two Bills Introduced in the Florida Legislature Would Go a Long Way to Discourage Illegal Aliens

Anna Marie Bolton

In the wake of the hard fought win by former House of Representatives Republican Ron DeSantis in the Florida governor’s race, legislators in the state House and Senate are inspired to try again to move two bills that would have a chilling effect on the ability of businesses to hire illegal aliens and for local governments to harbor them from federal law enforcement. An immigration restriction group headquartered in Washington, DC, the Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR), reported the news about the bills to its members on Friday. Although the legislature does not reconvene until March 2019, committees will discuss the bills during January and February. E-Verify On December 11, Representative Thad Altman (R-Melbourne/Indialantic) introduced HB 89 which would among other provisions: ~ Require all private employers to register with E-Verify and use it for all employees hired after January 1, 2020; ~ Require all state agencies, local governments and public contractors to verify new employees hired after July 1, 2019; ~ Set up an enforcement process where private employers could lose their business licenses for employing illegal aliens; ~ Require the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity to report illegal aliens to ICE. Many, including the leadership of FAIR, believe that mandatory…

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Memphis to Hand Out Corporate Welfare to Indigo Ag

Chris Butler

Another company, Indigo Ag, is getting corporate welfare to come to Memphis. According to The Daily Memphian, Memphis’ Economic Development Growth Engine gave what the paper called a modest incentive of $109,000 in city and county tax savings over 15 years and a $150,000 grant. Indigo Ag will bring 625 new corporate jobs to downtown Memphis and will pay an average salary of $92,383, the paper reported. “The salary level revealed Friday by the Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE) staff is part of the equation the agency used to propose an incentive for the ag-tech company to establish its North American commercial operations headquarters in Memphis,” according to The Daily Memphian. “But the company will likely receive about $5 million in total incentives, counting $4.5 million proposed from the state and more grants from the Center City Development Board.” From EDGE, Indigo Ag wants $259,807 in local tax savings and grants over 15 years. This, the paper went on to say, is in return for adding 625 jobs that pay more than $90,000 yearly, The Daily Memphian said. “The various local and state agencies made public the incentive proposals two days after Indigo Ag, along with state and local officials,…

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